Fire sprinkler systems are increasingly recognized as necessary safety features in the construction of new buildings and in the upgrading of existing buildings. There is a problem, however, in the installation of fire sprinkler systems.
Many styles of fire sprinkler heads have built-in deflectors that require rotational orientation of the sprinkler head to correctly position the deflector to produce the desired spray pattern when the head operates. All prior art fire sprinkler heads are attached to the piping mains by tapered pipe threads designed to produce a water tight seal using the interference of the tapered threads, plus either or both of a thread tape or thread paste. Thus, it can be appreciated that proper orientation of prior art sprinkler heads can usually only be accomplished by under-tightening the sprinkler heads or over-tightening the sprinkler heads. Overtightening of the tapered pipe threads produces interference between the mating threads, resulting in distortion of the mating parts. Undertightening over the tapered pipe threads can produced leaks.
Accordingly, there is a need for a fire sprinkler fitting which avoids the aforementioned in the prior art.